Everybody, Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People

by Bob Goff

After long enough, what looks like faith isn’t really faith anymore. It’s just compliance. The problem with mere compliance is it turns us into actors.

Instead of telling people what they want, we need to tell them who they are. This works every time. We’ll become in our lives whoever the people we love the most say we are.

If we want to love people the way God loved people, let God’s Spirit do the talking when it comes to telling people what they want.

Tell the people you meet who they’re becoming, and trust that God will help people to find their way toward beautiful things in their lives without you.

shame makes us silent. It strips us of the few words we might have. It mutes our life and our love. It’s the pickpocket of our confidence.

The ones I see as difficult, He sees as delightfully different. The fact is, what skews my view of people who are sometimes hard to be around is that God is working on different things in their lives than He is working on in mine.

You’ll be able to spot people who are becoming love because they want to build kingdoms, not castles. They fill their lives with people who don’t look like them or act like them or even believe the same things as them. They treat them with love and respect and are more eager to learn from them than presume they have something to teach.

Loving people means caring without an agenda.

As soon as we have an agenda, it’s not love anymore. It’s acting like you care to get someone to do what you want or what you think God wants them to do. Do less of that, and people will see a lot less of you and more of Jesus.

When God sent Jesus into the world, He demonstrated He didn’t just want to be an observer in the lives of the ones He loved. He wanted to be a participant. He wanted to be with the ones He loved.

He said He wanted us to become new creations. His plan for our renewal is that we cut away all the things hanging us up and start all over again each day with Him.

If we want to be like Jesus, here’s our simple and courageous job: Catch people on the bounce. When they mess up, reach out to them with love and acceptance the way Jesus did. When they hit hard, run to them with your arms wide open to hug them even harder. God wants to be with them when they mess up, and He wants us to participate.

Find what the people you love want to do and then go be with them in it. If Adam wanted to make pizzas, I’d grow the tomatoes. Be with each other. Don’t just gather information about people who have failed big or are in need—go be with them. When you get there, don’t just be in proximity—be present. Catch them. Don’t try to teach them. There’s a big difference. We don’t need a plan to do these things. We don’t need to wait for just the right moment. We just need to show up, grab a parachute, and when it’s time, jump out of our shoes after people the way Jesus jumped out of heaven to be with us. Sometimes we make loving people a lot more complicated than Jesus did. We don’t need to anymore. It’s just up, down, and out.

Instead of evaluating what others are doing, they see them as people who are on their own adventure with God. They don’t stop counting because they don’t care; they’re just so busy engaging in what God is doing in the world, it doesn’t matter anymore.

He wants our hearts, not our help.

They don’t memorize the good or bad they or anyone else have done. They memorize grace instead.

The promise of love and grace in our lives is this: Our worst day isn’t bad enough, and our best day isn’t good enough. We’re invited because we’re loved, not because we earned it.

God makes people, and people make issues, but people aren’t issues. They’re not projects either. People are people.

Here’s the deal: All those deep urgings you feel to step toward the beautiful, courageous thing you’re afraid to do—you probably won’t always have the chance. Now is the time. Your life, your experiences, and your faith are your green lights. Make your move.

God has surrounded me with countless people, just like He has you. Plenty of those people are trustworthy lights who point me to Jesus through our relationships. Find those people in your life and lean on them a little. Be more vulnerable and transparent than you think you have the wheels for. Do it anyway. Sometimes when we ask God for an answer, He sends us a friend. Figure out who He’s already sent to you.

Be honest with yourself about these things. God is less concerned about the people who admit their doubts than the ones who pretend they’re certain. Each day I start with the things I’m certain about and try to land my weight on those things. It always starts with a loving, caring God who is tremendously interested in me and the world I live in. I’m picky about what else I add after that.

Yet, at some point, we need to stop waiting for permission and go live our lives. God isn’t stingy with His love, and He doesn’t delight in seeing us uncomfortable either. Perhaps we don’t get all the answers and confirmations we ask for because God loves seeing us grow.

You don’t need to take all the steps, just the next one. God may not give us all the green lights we want, but I’m confident He gives us all the green lights He wants us to have at the time. Go with what you’ve got. If God wants you to stay put, He’ll let you know.

people who are becoming love try impossible things because they’ve surrounded themselves with voices they can trust.

I don’t know what color the gates of heaven are or who takes over when Saint Peter takes a day off. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there will be a long line of people waiting to get in. It will wind out the door like a long snake. Somewhere near the entry at the front of the line, I’m betting there will be a guy who looks a lot like Adrian. He won’t be checking for titles or degrees or accomplishments or how rich or poor someone was. He’ll be asking everyone whether they found their identity in Jesus and if they really were who they said they were during their lives.

Many of us have arms and feet we can move to help others, but we choose not to. We shy away from people we don’t understand or who intimidate us because they’re different from us. We have eyes to see people who are hurting, but we only watch because we’re scared if we get closer, it will disrupt what we’ve spent a lifetime making orderly. We have minds to understand the depths of others’ pain, but we just empathize without getting involved because we’re scared of what might happen if we do.

just keep bringing whatever you have to God and let Him decide what He’ll do with it.

People who have developed a friendship with Jesus and are becoming love aren’t immune to life’s setbacks. They have just as many as everyone else.

God isn’t always leading us to the safest route forward but to the one where we’ll grow the most.

if we want more faith, we need to do more stuff.

Loving people the way Jesus did means living a life filled with constant interruptions.

when you’ve got a guide you can trust, you don’t have to worry about the path you’re on.

Following Jesus means climbing, tripping, dusting ourselves off, and climbing some more.

It’s easy to confuse busyness with progress and accomplishments with pleasing Jesus. Every day we get to decide whether we’re really following Jesus or treating Him like He’s just a Sherpa carrying our stuff.

People who are becoming love celebrate how far the people around them have come.

Loving people the way Jesus did means being constantly misunderstood. People who are becoming love don’t care. They will do whatever it takes to reach whoever is hurting.

The people who creep us out aren’t obstacles to having faith; they’re opportunities to understand it.

Difficulties and setbacks will give us the chance to go back or lean forward once again.